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Microsoft Blocking Wine Users From Downloads Site
IamTheRealMike writes "In January, Microsoft announced a new anti-piracy initiative called
Genuine Advantage. From this summer onwards all users of Microsoft Downloads will be required to validate using either an ActiveX control or a standalone tool. Yesterday Ivan Leo Puoti, a Wine developer, discovered that the validation tool checks directly for Wine and bails out with a generic error when found. This is significant as it's not only the first time Microsoft has actively discriminated against users running their programs via Wine, but it's also the first time they've broken radio silence on the project."
Is Firefox secretly paying for this great, new marketing strategy?
Didn't they do something like this with the Trillian protocol on MSN Messenger? They hate third parties.
There are 2 types of people in the world, those who find that stupid binary joke funny, and those who don't.
Don't drink and download.
Unknown host pong.
It isn't like there is anything particularly ugly about what Microsoft is doing. I mean, they really don't have an obligation to provide downloads of wine users, who are using a (somewhat) compatible competing system rather than theirs.
I use wine to run some things, and I have not paid a dime to microsoft, so I don't exactly expect them to provide me with any services.
Windows 3.1 deliberately refused to run under DR-DOS, the competitor to MS-DOS at the time. The deliberately vague error was caused by a block of obfuscated code--google for DR-DOS AARD.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
If it's checking to see if you have genuine windows, and it bails out because you're running WINE under Linux, then it is doing it's job correctly.
Wouldn't we be complaining if it *wasn't* working right?
My question is who gains from using the "Genuine Advantage"? I don't see how that would change my Windows expirience on a day-to-day basis.
root@allevil:~#
I agree, they have a perfect right to do this. It is interesting news, however.
A valid and working code is returned if the version is set to xp.
So it doesn't even really stop you.
- Jax
"At Microsoft, security is our number one priority. You should turn off ActiveX controls and click 'no' to any dialog boxes. Service Pack 2 adds protection against these ActiveX controls, and with Windows Server 2003 ActiveX controls and other harmful content are blocked by default. This is for your own safety."
"Ignore all that, turn ActiveX on again, else you won't be able to download from us!"
What the hell?
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Unless you can prove you have a license, they dont have to give you squat.
Having wine installed inst a license to use their DLL's. And in some
cases, even Microsoft applications you have *purchased*. Read your EULA's closely people.
Sure, its irritating as hell, and will make updating to run newer applicatinos a pain, but well within their legal rights.
Best solution is not to have to run wine if at all possible.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sadly, the only people that are gaining anything, even when MS loses anti-trust cases, are the lawyers. I don't see this one getting that far, though.
I'm guessing that the only real downloads a Wine user would be making are updates for Office, correct? I'm drawing a blank on what else it could be. I haven't had the time to read my MS office EULA yet, but I'm guessing it doesn't specifically call out that it has to be run on Windows. That doesn't mean that MS has to provide you support if you're not. This is an automated incarnation of what has happened for years:
me> I need support
support> You're computer case isn't blue, is it?
me> yes, it is, thanks for asking
support> We don't support our software on computers with blue cases. Thanks for calling.
me> argh!
I think we've all been in that boat at one point or another.
Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/
It's just the same idea of 'compatibility' for Microsoft - changes are intended to break competitor's products.
...to support his childish claims about OSS software having poor interoperability.
For me it's just another good reason to stay well clear from a software company with such business tactics.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
The license for any non-OS product from Microsoft says nothing about having to run it on Windows. They assume you will, but WINE breaks that assumption. They are just pissed off about it... they may actually get themselves in trouble by not allowing people who paid for their products to update them. Just because somebody can run microsoft office on Linux doesn't mean it was pirated.
Reminds me of this...
How MS played the incompatibility card against DR-DOS
It's bad because they, under the guise of anti-piracy, (which some may compare to anti-terrorism initiatives) blocked WINE, and made it seem as though it was a pirated product.
To my knowledge WINE is an emulator for windows, so that windows programs may be run without purchasing windows. It is NOT some sort of cracked version of windows. We all know Microsoft hates losing the bling bling, but few linux users are likely to front said bling on top of the cost for the windows program. It comes out to probably 100-2000$ depending on the program, and the cost of Windows Xp Home(which i use because it only costs 100 bucks for easy typing).
That said, WINE shouldn't be reliant on Microsoft for updates. The WINE community should fix it(if it is a bug), no handout thank-you. And Microsoft is not responsible for WINE, they should just plainly state "WINE is not a supported Microsoft product and therefore does not get updates"
Putting this under some cover is bad, and shows microsofts(already known) business tendancies, to be sneaky and mean.
Sneaky-snake!
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
I've got to say that they DON'T have a right. I was a victim of their DR-DOS isn't compatible trick. I was forced to go buy Dos 6.0 and then it ATE MY DATA! I became rather negative towards this convicted monopolist when I found out they had done that on purpose!
Oh - did you notice that last sentence - CONVICTED MONOPOLIST. They have to play by a different set of rules.
If they are selling a package - say "Office" and someone wants to run that on another platform, then MS doesn't really have the right to restrict where it runs. They may imply they do through EULA's, etc. but this would like be easily proved as monopolist behavior - and oh yeah - they've been convicted of that already!
This behavior fits that model EXACTLY!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
I run Microsoft Office under CodeWeavers' Crossover Office, both of which are licensed (read: I paid for it), so yes, I find the news disturbing.
It also appears to be a very shortsighted move on their part while under a worldwide antitrust microscope.
one better than mcleodeight
Realistically, Microsoft isn't going to put themselves out of business, with this stupid trick or any other. They'll be around, and be a damn big company, for a veeery long time.
What I do hope and halfway expect will happen is that they'll find themselves "in trouble" by Wall Street standards -- steadily declining profits turning into steady losses, with a corresponding implosion in stock proce -- and that this will force them to become a good company making a good product at a good price in order to gain their customers' trust and support. It's happened before; if someone had told me 20 years, hell, 10 years, ago that IBM in the 21st c. would be considered one of the good guys, I'd have laughed my ass off.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
On the flipside, I wonder if this means that WINE has moved from the part where MS ignored them and will begin laughing at them.
You have to figure that MS bought Connectix for their virtualization technology so that they could actually dump backwards compatibility from the core OS and just use limited virtualization for better backward compatibility. At the same time by dumping all that cruft from the core OS, they can make the OS something more advanced. XP was a pretty big leap from Win2K in that direction (dropping support for CPUs below P II for example). I would have to guess that Longhorn is going to be an even bigger jump which is why it's taking so long.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
A lot of people are saying MS has the right to restrict downloads to people who own their software. I agree that they are liable to their customers, but some of their customers run wine.
I have a legal copy of Windows which is currently unused. I don't like dual booting. I don't like running under an x86 emulator. I like using Wine (or commercial variants of it) if I absolutely need to run win32 software. At the very least, my license to Windows should entitle me to downloads from MS--not whether or not I am using Windows to download them. They should at least give you the opportunity to enter in your product key. I'd still feel like this was obnoxious & be pissed at them, but at least people in a similar situation would be able to download programs from them.
I think what many object to is that they're being vague, at best, about what is the source of the "problem". If a message came up saying something like "Windows emulators are not supported for this operation", then there would be little room to complain. However, this is not the case, and many, myself included, suspect that MS is deliberately being vague about it, rather than having the courage (and smarts) to just be upfront about it.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
... `till WINE won't run.
Good old Microsoft.
Same as it ever was.
Just tested downloading using Internet Explorer running under Wine.
Installed the ActiveX component, and downloaded just fine.
Tried with the AntiSpyware product of theirs.
morcego
I've got to say that they DON'T have a right. I was a victim of their DR-DOS isn't compatible trick. I was forced to go buy Dos 6.0 and then it ATE MY DATA! I became rather negative towards this convicted monopolist when I found out they had done that on purpose!
Hell, I was a victim of their DR-DOS trick too. I was even more of a victim since I used to work at WordPerfect, and then Novell after that. But this is a totally different scenario. It's not like their restricting you from running Windows on a competing platform. They're just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a customer first".
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
If you can hack around this, more power to you, but MS is under no legal or ethical obligation to support your efforts.
Of course, there's a difference between not supporting your efforts, "accidentally" breaking your efforts, and actively trying to stop your efforts from working. This appears to be a pretty clear case of the third item in that list.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
For the past four years I've been managing a couple of Windows 2K Server farms from a Linux workstation. The simple combination of rdesktop and a WM that has virtual desktops makes for a pretty kickass KVM-a-like with a full workstaton behind it.
So just yesterday I'm at Microsoft's site grabbing a copy of Sonar, a file replication monitoring tool, and it wants to immediately verify my copy of Windows. But I'm grabbing the file from my workstation because the machines it will be applied to don't have direct access to the internet. Luckily for now, I can choose to skip the verification step, but eventually I know I won't be able to.
I would imagine that my scenario is far from unique. It certainly isn't deceptive in any way, but I've got the feeling that it won't be an option for me in the near future.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
You know, the thing that caught my eye the most in the summary was that they use an Active X control to check.
My biggest problem with the way that Microsoft does a lot of things is this damned Active X stuff. In order to secure your system, everyone says turn this crap off because it's a huge gaping hole.
In order to do anything with Microsoft's site, you need to set your security settings to abysmal in order to use the damned site. I'm sure a more Windows-savvy user can set it up to have these settings off and still use this stuff.
I find it annoying and most people probably end up leaving themselves with insecure settings so they can get their security updates.
Silly.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This is a sign of things to come for Mono.
.Net project can easily be withheld and apps written on the MS platform can be forced to link against them)
Sure, I know that you can do without Genuine Microsoft binaries for much of Mono, but being blocked from having updates sure hurts the compatibility argument to Mono. (ie. updates to the
I know that many Wine libraries are needed for the Forms libaries and this will be a blow for dll updates and changes there.
If Microsoft tries to enforce their patent protections on top of this kind of thing, it will be game-over for the new Gnome development on Mono. Score: Microsoft 1, Linux Desktop -1
"Windows Genuine Advantage already helps protect millions of Windows users from an inferior computing experience, viruses and other vulnerabilities that can result from counterfeit software."
You should only have the inferior computing, viruses and vulnuerabilities that result from Genuine Windows products. Don't be fooled by immitations.
Wait there's more....
I was at Novell also and worked in the same department as the guy who was tasked to figure out why Win 3.1 wouldn't load on DR-DOS. They didn't use a very sophisticated method to determine if MS-DOS or DR-DOS was running. The fix was simple. Just lie. Perhaps the WINE folk can do the same.
They're just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a customer first".
No, they are not. Your assessment is wrong.
If I purchase Office, run it under WINE and want to update it, I'm screwed -- yet I am a legit customer of Microsoft.
Considering you can't really update WINE thru WUS, WTF is the point?
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
When Windows XP was being coded they had a party and TOO MUCH wine.
Obviously IANAL...
Seems to me that if such terms are in a license, then you don't really NEED any trial to speak of to get a conviction for antitrust. All you need is Exhibit A, the license that *ties* the two products together.
Of course the product that benefits from the tying (the OS) is itself a monopoly. But given that Office is also effectively a monopoly, though it hasn't been declared so in court, doesn't this qualify as a "monopoly maintenance" device, which is also illegal under antitrust.
I believe Microsoft is justified in not giving support for its products running in an unsupported environment. But to restrict patch availability to a product based on the OS running underneath is kind of like a car parts store requiring your Ford registration before you can buy Ford accessories.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It's not like their restricting you from running Windows on a competing platform.
What does this have to do with anything, and who said this is what was happening?
I read the article, and unless I missed something, this is NOT the complaint.
I don't use WINE to run Windows(c) OS, I run it to run some (work required) Office apps and some games.
The Office apps were purchased and presumably have rights to be updated the same as any other user of Office apps. Same with the games.
But Microsoft is saying that, because I am using a valid purchased version of their software on an OS other than Windows (by using WINE) they will not allow updates from their servers.
This is the mirror image of their antitrust loss - they were accused of using their market possition (monopoly) in the OS to maintain and grow their market position in other markets, while here they are using their market possition in the other areas to maintain their possition in the OS market.
You say you were a victim of the DR-DOS 'trick', where a competiting product was specifically checked for and then bogus 'error' messages were given, or the applications just didn't work as expected - not because of a problem with DR-DOS, but because the app was PROGRAMMED to work differently when used with DR-DOS. Like is happening here?
You say you worked at WordPerfect. Isn't that the company that worked with Microsoft to be compatable and competitive, then Microsoft changed the APIs and didn't publish them to competitors of their Office (specifically Word(c)) and royally screwed WordPerfect over?
Novell - didn't I hear their networking applications were deliberately 'broken' by Microsoft so that Microsofts' market share of networking would not be threatened? Like here?
They're just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a customer first".
No, they are just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a Microsoft Windows OS customer first (even if you are a valid Microsoft Office customer)." Very different than what you posted.
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
No, they don't. As a CONVICTED MONOPOLIST they are explicitly prohibited from forcing owners of one of their products (such as Office) to use another of their products (specifically Windows).
microsoft has used "generic error" messages to discriminate against users of software it doesn't like.
After winning awards and besting MS-DOS in virtually every comparison, DR-DOS had the rug pulled out from under it when Microsoft released a beta version of Windows 3.0 that detected DR-DOS and gave bogus error messages.
print the article while you can. now that the records from the caldera trial have been destroyed (along with the copy of the beta they managed to find for the trial, no doubt), microsoft will undoubted resume claiming it's an urban legend, if they have't already, and all mention of this little bit of history is rapidly vanishing from the virtual world as well. pathetic.
the destruction of the caldera trial documents has been mentioned on slashdot once or twice, and i commented on it both times. pity nobody cared. oh well. history repeats itself again.
Microsoft has every right to block someone from updating Office when it's being run from a Non-Microsoft Operating System...
8 ba0-3d24-4f00-aab1-dd9ff4aacfc9/en_client_eula.pdf
No, they don't. Read the EULA and it says NOTHING of the kind.
I quote from the MS Word 2003 EULA found at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/2/5/1253
"Installation and use. You may:
(a) install and use a copy of the Software on one personal computer or other device; and
(b) install an additional copy of the Software on a second, portable device for the exclusive use of the primary
user of the first copy of the Software."
If you can point out in the EULA where I missed it and there is a statement saying I have to run this software under MS Windows, I'd appreciate it.
Until such time, I have the right to run the software under any OS I want.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The Office 2003 Standard Edition EULA (Original PDF, View as HTML) doesn't seem to say that.
Sean.OutaHere()
Beer users still have no problems getting to the site.
The message: Microsoft cannot compete unless they have an unfair advantage.
Just like HP. Without the crazy, temporary, situation of being able to sell ink, that is mostly cheap solvent, for thousands of dollars more than the cost of the raw material, HP would be much smaller and poorer.
These people are not real business people. They survive only by being adversarial toward the world.
"Unsupported configuration" merely means "I'm not going out of my way to make it work for this configuration. If it happens to work, it works, if it happens to fail, it fails. Too bad. I'm not going out of my way to do anything about it." But what Microsoft actually does when they misuse the word "unsupported" is to deliberately cripple the configuration, adding EXTRA code to look for that configuration and deliberately fail on it. (As they did in this case) They go out of their way to ensure it fails.
That means "unsupported" is not telling the whole story. It's deliberate deception.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Brilliant move, Microsoft. Now some dweeb living in his mom's basement will write an ActiveX virus that creates the Wine key in the registry, then exits.
The next time you go to Windows Update, whether you run Wine or not...